HBO reportedly aired a new trailer last night, the 9th one released for Game of Thrones so far. It has yet to be put online, but hopefully will soon. HBO also teased next week’s 15-minute preview with a short preview (a preview of a preview).

Some new photos have popped up, both on HBO.com and over at Canal+ Spain’s Juego de TronosFacebook page. They include shots of Drogo and Dany, Arya, Drogo, Robert, and a direwolf banner. All can be viewed in the Publicity Photo section of our Image gallery.

Some new videos have been added exclusively to Comcast On Demand. Including an extended costume feature (that gives us our first look at the face carved in the weirwood tree) and a full 3 minutes of the direwolf-finding scene. These videos will be added to HBO On Demand on April 4th. In addition, iTunes now has most of the videos released so far.

A bunch of new items have been added to the HBO Shop, including beer steins and new t-shirts featuring art from the 5 alternate Thrones posters. Use code SHIP49AFF to get free shipping on orders $49 or more if you order before Sunday, April 3rd.

Thrones was mentioned in the April issue of Maxim in a section entitled Get Medieval, alongside Camelot, The Borgias and Your Highness. In addition, Thrones was featured in recent issues of UK publications SciFiNow and Sky magazine (stay tuned for more details on those articles).

Maxim isn’t the only publication comparing The Borgias and Camelot to Thrones, James Hibberd over at Entertainment Weekly has a post comparing the three series’ as well, complete with a handy reference guide.

Westeros continues their series of cast interviews, this time with Kristian Nairn. Be sure to check it out to hear how Kristian ended up at his agent’s grandmother’s birthday part lifting mahogany tables over his head to win the part of Hodor. Also, look for some WiC exclusive interviews soon.

Sky is giving fans the opportunity to win a trip to Northern Ireland to tour much of the locations used in filming Thrones. You can enter the drawing at the link, but you need a Sky ID, which means UK residents only.

Israel premiere airdate on yes set for April 21st. Also, the American Forces Network will be airingThrones starting April 23rd for our men and women in uniform. Check our International Airings page for more air dates from around the world.

Aidan Gillen was interviewed by The Daily Record. Only a short mention of Thrones, but it comes with a great quote from Gillen on Littlefinger.

This Variety article reveals the budget for the first season of Game of Thrones to be $60 million. Quite more than the previously reported $45 million. That puts Thrones pretty close to HBO’s most expensive show at the moment, Boardwalk Empire. 7Kingdoms.ru has a nice comparative graph of similar shows and their budgets.

Another “quick hit” from my side of the world. I’m in Afghanistan and just saw a preview for GOT. AFN (Armed Forces Network) is going to be showing Game of Thrones late nights on their channel Spectrum. So that’s good news for any US military stationed overseas that wanted to see the show but don’t have access to HBO or their local pay channels.

GoT comes out on top! Love the EW chart, under spectacle = HIGH (looks like it cost a fortune to make, but in reality it only cost $50 million) Pleased to read under “HERO” : How much time do you have? In this sprawling cast…

Imho, the scene-stealer is going to be Gillen/LF, not Dinklage/TL, because you don’t expect it. That’s why it’s called ‘stealing’.

Honestly, I am prob going to watch all three shows. I’m a total sucker for costume dramas, and suddenly we’re in a bodice-ripping carnival with all the tickets in hand! It just may take some months for me to find the time to watch the Borgias & Camelot. Camelot has been done, done, done. The Twilight fans feel like the target demo for Camelot too, so that’s another turn-off.

::RANT:: Anyone else get really annoyed when Renaissance years are lazily lumped in as “Medieval’? *cough Borgias 1492 …* It’s like saying the present-day is the Industrial Revolution because it’s only a couple hundred years off! Uh. NO! ::endrant::

PS: psyched about NYC on Friday, though it’ll be jarring to meet the heads that belong to all these disembodied voices… XD

Franny Bee:
GoT comes out on top! Love the EW chart,under spectacle = HIGH (looks like it cost a fortune to make, but in reality it only cost $50 million) Pleased to read under “HERO” : How much time do you have? In this sprawling cast…

Imho, the scene-stealer is going to be Gillen/LF, not Dinklage/TL, because you don’t expect it. That’s why it’s called ‘stealing’.

Honestly, I am prob going to watch all three shows. I’m a total sucker for costume dramas, and suddenly we’re in a bodice-ripping carnival with all the tickets in hand! It just may take some months for me to find the time to watch the Borgias & Camelot. Camelot has been done, done, done.The Twilight fans feel like the target demo for Camelot too, so that’s another turn-off.

::RANT:: Anyone else get really annoyed when Renaissance years are lazily lumped in as “Medieval’? *cough Borgias 1492 …* It’s like saying the present-day is the Industrial Revolution because it’s only a couple hundred years off! Uh. NO!::endrant::

PS: psyched about NYC on Friday, though it’ll be jarring to meet the heads that belong to all these disembodied voices… XD

YES about the Renaissance thing! Borgias was probably just lumped into “medieval” so it would fit alongside the other two shows, but 1492 is definitely Renaissance. I mean, only a few years after that Michelangelo had completed the Pieta. ;)

I hadn’t had any interest in Camelot, but I’ve just read a bit about it and may give it a go. I feel like I have never really taken to any form of Arthurian legend that’s been put in front of me, so I’m not sure how I’ll receive this. And like Franny said, Camelot is practically trite now. In all honesty, and this is sort of unfair to Camelot, but I think most of the reason I suddenly want to watch it is just so I can say Game of Thrones is better. :/

I don’t have Showtime but I think Borgias would be an interesting series to follow. The Vatican and its hold on Europe and the secrets that must be locked away in its labyrinthine halls just fascinate me.

Eric: Also I like the steins, I just wish they weren’t all 40 dollars or I’d probably try to buy the whole set!

Yeah, $40 per is pretty steep. Unfortunately the 20% off code has expired, but you can use code SHIP49AFF to get free shipping on orders of $49 or more if you order before Sunday. Not as good, but at least it helps a little.

Thanks! Much appreciated. A little “happier” than I thought but I guess that’s one in the grove north of the wall not the Winterfell one. However a big improvement over the one that was from the pilot shoot.

Abyss:
What?! Camelot has a bigger budget then Game of Thrones? Can´t believe that this is true… I know, Camelot has more episodes but still…

I noticed that too. Higher budget per episode too so someone put some SERIOUS money behind Camelot. I’m surprised as I haven’t really seen anything that compares in regards to the scale of GOT. Where is Camelot filming? It might be more expensive than Ireland. A higher budget though isn’t always a good thing as it mights the head honchos expect more in regards to ratings and sale. The miracles they worked though with Boardwalk Empire does give me inspiration in regards to the scale and production of Game of Thrones. One thing people were continuously impressed by with BE was the production values so if a similar amount is being pumped into GOT, good.

The margins on these items must be quite something….both the t-shirts and the steins are overpriced (especially the steins at $40). I’m probably going to try and order a couple of t-shirts once the show airs and probably some other things that will get added then.

Yeah, I also imagine that GOT is probably more story and dialogue heavy than Camelot though I haven’t seen it so I don’t know. I did see that Camelot got a B- in EW this week. They cite the same things that everyone thought about it going in. “More King Arthur? Uggh…”

Nope. I’m gonna make like Bran and FLY!!! (OH! Too soon?) I’ve been wanting to see the HBO store, and I need a new guitar, so New York was sounding good. But the foodtrucks & WiC made it irresistible :)

Yeah, I also imagine that GOT is probably more story and dialogue heavy than Camelot though I haven’t seen it so I don’t know. I did see that Camelot got a B- in EW this week.They cite the same things that everyone thought about it going in. “More King Arthur? Uggh…”

That’s my sentiment: Arthur is overdone.

Does anyone know how Joe Fiennes is playing Merlin? Is he an upfront and unapologetic wizard, or is he more of a monk/mystic type? Camelot and GoT both seem to be marketed as realistic fantasy/fantasy for adults, and I find a strange balance between the two with regards to how they’ll be accepted by mainstream audiences. Camelot is probably more immediately acceptable because people are familiar with Arthurian legend. Yet one of their main characters is a wizard, which I assume would lessen a sense of realism (although you can argue that Harry Potter mainstreamed wizards). GoT is of course not as well known, but its magical elements are more esoteric and the characters’ responses to magic are more similar to how people in our society would actually react. But then you have the fact that Westeros is completely fictional, and although Camelot is as well, people can attach it to Britain. The last point has been a challenge for me to explain to some non-genre fans; my dad in particular, whenever I get excited about GoT, asks why I would want to read/watch something set in a completely made-up world. It will definitely be interesting to see how non-genre fans respond to each show.

I never realized this untill now but.. OMG! Its one hour (almost) per episode! is this for real? will they get cut down to like 45 mins? is the pilot (2 first epiosodes) is 2 hours then? ahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Mortosivax:
I never realized this untill now but.. OMG! Its one hour (almost) per episode! is this for real? will they get cut down to like 45 mins?is the pilot (2 first epiosodes) is 2 hours then? ahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

HBO’s episodes can range from about 45 minutes to even 1+ hours (usually including a several-minute “previously on” at the beginning of each episode). I think it just depends on the production. I seem to recall a lot of True Blood episodes ending short, at maybe 45-50, while Boardwalk Empire stretched a bit closer toward the full hour. I just finished watching Oz (HBO’s first 1-hour drama) and those episodes were almost always just about an hour. Hopefully GoT doesn’t cut their episodes short.

As Mortosivax pointed out, the pilot is just one episode. There was some confusion a few weeks ago as to whether or not HBO would broadcast two episodes the first night, but I think it has been confirmed that it will just be one. But HBO is showing the first 15 minutes next week at 9PM Eastern Time, so don’t miss that if you’re interested. :)

Interesting , according to this article, Showtime’s The Borgias currently airs at 8 p.m. Sundays (aka the same time that Game of Thrones will air), but moves to 9 p.m. starting April 10 (aka the week before Game of Thrones premiers).

Hmm, sounds like the Showtime execs might have been a little worried that Game of Thrones was going to steal some of their viewership ratings. I love the boldness of HBO premiering their new hit show in the same time slot of Showtime’s already-airing new hit show and forcing Showtime to blink first.

I posted this before, but I didn’t see it on the list of quick hits, and I think it may have been overlooked but Dalton Ross, an EW critic, had some things to say about GoT the other day.

I noticed he had responded to someone with this tweet “Saw the first 2 hours. Liked it. RT @jdtvi have you seen Game of Thrones pilot yet?” and then replied to someone else with this “Wasn’t a big fan of either. RT @xelr8tr How about Camelot or Borgias?”

I thought this was interesting, and since I follow him for his coverage of Survivor (I love it, don’t judge me! :P ) I posted this “@ewdaltonross you get to go on location to #Survivor every year and now you get to see #GOT early?! How did you get to be so lucky! #jealous” to which he replied “@Putter482 Jennifer Armstrong is the lucky one. We sent her to the #GOT set in Belfast. See her story in EW next Friday!”

So I know, lots of Twitter crap, but I thought it was interesting that of the three the only one that really took him was GOT, a good thing as EW is pretty widely read, and the second thing being the feature article that will appear in EW next week! :D

Thank you very much. I actually get to go home 2 days before the premier so I’m going to get to watch it comfortably from my couch. Get to meet my newborn son AND see Game of Thrones all in the window of a few days. It’s gonna be a great week.

Well, I posted this before, but it was off-topic in another thread, so I’ll post it again:

I LOVE the beer steins! I really had no intention of buying a ton of GOT merchandise (was thinking about a t-shirt) but I need to get me some of these! I love beer, and I’ve always loved cool mugs/goblets/steins, but don’t really own any…. so these would be perfect. I’ll get a LOT of use out of them. :)

However, I think the price is a bit outrageous! Especially since I want to buy several of them! Oh well. I will probably end up buying the Stark, Lannister, Baratheon, and Greyjoy steins (I’d love the Targaryen one if it was black rather than white). I feel a bit guilty spending so much on these, especially since I can’t afford it and did not expect it, but they’re just too awesome.

Too bad they’re only shipping on April 15. I’d love to have them in time for a premiere party, but that won’t happen.

Devotion to subject matter is not a crime. It won’t be hypocritical in two weeks when I rave about HBO’s “Game of Thrones” and specifically its impressively full realization of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy world.

I have yet to see a critic say anything negative about GoT, while several have already dismissed Camelot and Borgias. I’m expecting a fantastic critical response, especially since so many critics are fans of the books.

I haven’t seen it posted anywhere but I’m pretty sure they ran a Game of Thrones commercial during the UK/UNC game. I was out of the room but heard those oft repeated lines from Heady; I immediately dropped what I was doing and bolted into the room, jaw agape. Don’t know if it’s sad or amazing that I was far more excited seeing that than the actual basketball game!

Also, it’s nice to see them advertising during event programming. I don’t usually watch the big shows on the major networks, but has anyone else seen one?

From what I understand, the “when they’re allowed to talk about it” moment was when the screeners went out. So, now. Don’t expect any full reviews right away, but certainly a few early impressions should be coming our way this week.

Lina: Does anyone know how Joe Fiennes is playing Merlin? Is he an upfront and unapologetic wizard, or is he more of a monk/mystic type?

The first episode has been released. I’d say a bit of both, a straight-faced mystic, driven and uncompromising in his vision? The dialogue is awful and cliché, made me cringe the whole time; it was barely palatable. Fiennes, Green, and Pelfoy do bring the acting chops to the table and give their characters something beyond their crappy lines (if the show was only the three or them, and no one else, it might be decent), but everyone else is just bland line deliverers. The logistics make no sense at all. They messed around with the myth so much that I was very confused for a while (and I’m no purist or anything). Morgaine is now Arthur’s half sister through Uther, and not Igraine which had my brain turning loops. I don’t think I could stand to sit through a second episode unless they behead Arthur and install Morgaine in his place as head of the round table. It’s a shame, those three actors are wasted on this material. (And maybe they should have blown their fancy budget on better writers.) In short, awful, awful, awful!

I was quite intrigued with the Variety article because it mentions at one point that over at Paint Hall Studios they are gearing for the second season of “Game Of Thrones”…of course that in itself does not mean anything yet as there has been no official statement for a second season from HBO. $ 45-60 million is not that bad having been spent on the budget, actualy it is good if they manage to keep costs down. When one thinks that “ROME” ended up costing $100 million + for each season, and they had the BBC co-producing the series?!!? That is insane, and only HBO could have borne the cost!!!! And at the time they had “Deadwood” which was quite expensice to produce also, they had “The Sopranos”, “The Wire” ALL at the same time. I hope that they never repeat that and insstead stay focussed on 2 high cost shows like “Boardwalk Empire” and “Game Of Thrones” and lower cost shows like “Treme” and “True Blood”…that should be enough for original programming, not counting the other shows like “In Treatment” and “Eastbound And Out” etc.

Personally I hope that they can manage to bring the BBC back on board if subsequent seasons are approved, or other production companies intersted in investing, only if to make “Game Of Thrones” financially viable and take some of the burden of off HBO.

Speaking of shared costs, living in Canada, I am lucky because “The Borgias” will start airing in Canada on the Bravo channel at the same time as Showtime in the US, Sunday, April 3 at 10pm. (the Canadian version of Bravo, not the American one with all the “Real Wives of…” shows). Usually on Bravo shows and movies are shown uncut and uncensored (content and broadcast rules differ in Canada than in the States, so I can see un-edited content on basic cable without having to subscribe to premium channels like HBO or Showtime). In fact they are also airing “Dexer” but have only aired the second season and so far no new episodes have appeared. Over on SPACE (the Canadian version of SyFy) the second season of “True Blood” is airing right now, also on Sundays at 10pm. The reason that Canada has exclusive brodcast rights is because it is financially involved in the production of the series as well as some of the cast is Canadian (Colm Feore). It is the same case as with “The Tudors” which aired on the CBC (the canadian public broacaster). Yet the CBC only showed an edited version of the show. Below I copied and pasted the official announcement from Bravo Canada:

“Bravo! is about to unleash all that’s unholy with the premiere of its new Original Series THE BORGIAS, airing uncensored Sundays at 10 p.m. ET, beginning April 3 with a special two-hour launch event. Debuting day-and-date with SHOWTIME in the U.S. and from Academy Award®-winner Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), the international co-production (Canada/Hungary/Ireland) is the compelling and unflinching saga of one of the most remarkable and notorious families in history. Inspiring both Machiavelli’s The Prince and Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, THE BORGIAS are “The Original Crime Family.”

Produced by Take 5 Productions in association with Bravo!, CTV, and Showtime Networks in the U.S., THE BORGIAS is set in 15th century Italy in 1492 at the height of the Renaissance and an increasingly weak and dysfunctional Rome. Shot in Hungary and based on real characters and events, the nine-part, hour-long series chronicles the corrupt rise and ruthless consolidation of power by patriarch Rodrigo Borgia (Academy Award®-winner Jeremy Irons, Kingdom of Heaven, Being Julia), who stops at nothing to control the papal throne and feed his insatiable ambition for influence and wealth for himself and his family. Starring alongside Irons are Canadians Colm Feore (FLASHPOINT, 24) as his arch nemesis, Cardinal Della Rovere, and breakout star François Arnaud (J’ai tué ma mère) as Rodrigo’s ruthless son Cesare. ”

Now…I have to make my decision to subscribe to HBO Canada, which is quite expensive…Not to make more waves but over on AMC their new show is set to also premiere…”The Killing”…and I got to say that from the trailers, the show looks good also!

Yea, it wasn’t great. A lot of people seemed to think Fiennes was one of the good parts of the pilot, but I dunno… he came of as pretty cheesy to me, borderline campy at a few parts. As clemintine said, the writing is pretty bad and it was like the actors tried too hard to overcompensate for that, or something.

To continue my overly long comment, I heard rumblings that there will be a similar deal with “Camelot” from Starz. “Camelot” is an official Ireland/Canada co-production (as was “The Tudors”). So far there has been no official air date confirmed in Canada or what network will distribute the show, but I think that IF it will happen it won’t be until after it has aired in the US on Starz. A Canadian company (Take 5) owns the rights to the series as it is financially involved in its making. Most of the post-production work on “Camelot” was done in Toronto.

I hope this is true because this means that I don’t have to pay extra to see “Camelot”. IF I get “The Borgias” and “Camelot” with my current cable service without addtional costs, than that will free me up for “Game Of Thrones”. Canada was also involved financially with the production of Starz’s “The Pillars Of The Earth”, and in Canada the CBC aired the mini-series, altough by the time they did I had already purchased the DVD set.

While all this sounds good, it is important to understand that many of these companies do get tax payer’s money to venture in these co-productions, so in many ways I have already paid for the production of “The Borgias” and “Camelot”…

My wish is that Canada would see fit to get in on the action with “Game Of Thrones” and help support some of the production. As of now I have not yet heard HBO colaborating with any Canadian production companies on any shows…

Just saying, but over at Suvudu, they’re having their little character tournament, and our lad Jon Snow was getting trounced by Sanderson’s Vin last I checked. Not to be ra ra go team about this, but wouldn’t it be…interesting…if ASOIAF character just so happened to win the thing a few days before the preview aired?

I wonder if the price was a mistake initially or they saw us bitching about it and reduced it in response but the steins are now 25 dollars instead of 40. While still a little steep (I think a good price point for a ceramic stein would be 15 to 20 dollars, but then again they are charging 25 bucks for a t-shirt) it is at least now in the “reasonable” territory. I could actually see myself ordering a couple.

Yeah, if you read the same scenes from the leaked pilot script and the book back to back, it feels a little like reading some kind of condensed version for impatient people or something. But on it’s own the script worked great.

Okay, I went a little crazy and bought 5 of them (every stein except Tully)! I figured I might as well, since the price was essentially cut in half. Just goes to show what happens when you offer a reasonable price, instead of the original outrageous one!

“With a budget of $100 million, the first 12 episodes were shot in about 14 months with a crew of 350 in and around Rome, where five acres of standing sets, including a re-creation of the Forum, were constructed on the backlot of Cinecitta Studios.”

And here is a sobering article from the Kansas City Star that puts into perspective the risks involved when creating a big budget series like “Game Of Thrones”. By the way the budget mentioned in the article for the first season of “Game Of Thrones” is $45 million the same as for Showtime’s “The Borgias”.

Check imdb.com they also have details about the cost of the series. If it had cost what you suggest then I am sure they would have had another season at least. In fact the set was one of the largest outside sets ever built for a series. “ROME” remains one of the most expensive series ever made.

Better hope and pray that HBO manages to keep the costs for “Game Of Thrones” down or that at least they bring on another partner to produce the show, because if it gets anywhere near the cost of “ROME”…well I don’t need to say it…I want a full-run for “Game Of Thrones”. “ROME”‘s finale made sense and it ended where it should have, now “Game Of Thrones” is another matter alltogether.